Sat, Mar 02, 2013

Is Barack Obama the Vladimir Lenin of American Presidents? No, Lenin was competent in an evil sort of way. Obama is more like Leonid Brezhnev: an ultra left-wing, belligerent doofus who isn't laughed at by the general population primarily because the mainstream media liberals say nice things about him out of fear that they'll end up in a gulag if they're too harsh.

Like America’s long decline into fiscal stupidity, Detroit’s problems didn’t have their start in the fiscal crisis of 2008. A combination union greed, corporate gluttony, short-sighted thinking from politicians at the federal, state and local level have combined to create a soup of fiscal insolvency.

Is the Washington Post so biased and/or clueless that reporters really think that a 1.2 percent reduction in overall spending for the current fiscal year (which means the federal budget would still be larger than it was last year) represents a “sledgehammer of budget cuts”?

Hold off on the Harlem Shake for now. The Dow Jones industrial Average came tantalizingly close to clearing the old all-time high, but it stalled like one of those reality television shows that uses the same gimmicky build up before going to commercial break.

Growing rumors last month of a potential "tightening" of monetary policy - seemingly confirmed by the Fed minutes released on Feb. 20th - have spooked the precious metals markets, leading to a 5.8% correction in gold and 10.2% in silver. However, these fears are preposterous on two counts.

Every fiscal crisis is an opportunity to play budget games. This week’s panicked attempts by Congress to deal with the sequester presents a special opportunity for federal agencies to remind the public just how addicted the agencies are to federal spending. These reactions are all part of a predictable pattern, from Leon Panetta crying out that America’s security will be placed at severe risk to the White House claiming that over 40,000 teaching jobs will be lost.

Democratic consultant Jason Stanford of the Huffington Post thinks he has made a scientific discovery by claiming “birth control doesn’t cause abortions.” And he thinks opponents of ObamaCare’s abortion-pill mandate should throw in the towel.

If you’re looking to see what a policy of liberalism can do to a city, look no further then Rock City. Despite one of the most aggressive ECD campaigns featuring celebrities Eminem, Jeff Daniels and Tim Allen, not even Hollywood can save Detroit from going broke.

Well, well, well. Here we are. March first. Sequester Day. America Held Hostage; Day One. President Obama has been crisscrossing the country proclaiming the dire effects of March 1 if the Republicans in the House didn't bow to his demands.

The screeching you hear in Washington is the sound
of politicians slamming their mouths into reverse as they back away from
their previous positions on the misnamed "budget sequester." For weeks
now, we have been told that an $85 billion reduction in the rate of
increase in federal spending -- a 2.4 percent cut -- will have devastating
consequences for our nation.

It's most gratifying that people are beginning to wake up to the bullying tactics of the White House toward those in the press who occasionally stray from the government-owned media model, but this has been going on for a while.

Responding to the Obama administration's operatic warnings of
catastrophe for Meals on Wheels for the elderly, Head Start, meat
inspections, air traffic controllers, and police, fire, and 911 operators
if the government reduces the rate of increase of federal spending by 2
percent, radio host Chris Plante offered the following suggestion: "Since
this two percent obviously covers all essential government spending, let's
cut the other 98 percent!"

I leave the lovers' quarrel between Woodward and the White House to others. The fascinating thing is how many other rats have been willing to gang-up on Obama, suddenly, over sequestration and the rough-and-tumble stuff that Obama regularly practices with the press.

Conservatives usually have a few bones to pick with Hollywood over the Academy Awards. Not content with merely opening it, Hollywood pushes the envelope, often with questionable taste and mockery of common values.

When one of Washington's most distinguished journalists -- Bob Woodward -- accuses the White House of rewriting history, even liberals should take note. And when the White House responds by threatening him, you would think the story would become a national scandal. What makes the story even more important is that it deals with an issue that has dominated the news in recent weeks: the Draconian budget cuts that will take effect on March 1 unless a last-minute deal is reached in Congress.

Here we go again. And again. And again. ... For in Washington, every day is Groundhog Day. And now, once again, the country is speeding toward the dreaded ... Fiscal Cliff! Not to mention Catastrophe, Chaos and Collapse. Or maybe Stalemate, Train Wreck, Dysfunction or whatever your favorite clich may be. So quick, get the scare headlines back in type. The Great Tax vs. Spend Debate is on again, if it ever went away. With each side blaming the Coming and Constant Crisis on the other.

According to Keynesian theory, the reason that Japanese consumers (and any other worldwide shoppers for that matter) are not spending is because of a lack of money and/or credit (the real definition of deflation.) So, the obvious reason (secret) is to do what the U.S. is currently doing, namely quantitative easing. Of course, they give it a catchy name like “monetary strategy.”

The Pentagon’s budget occupies center stage in the sequestration drama. Defense spending comprises approximately 18 percent of the 2013 federal budget, but it accounts for 50 percent of federal spending cuts stipulated in the sequestration agreement.

In yesterday’s column, I listed some of the benefits that natural marriage provides children and society. But some claim that promoting natural marriage exclusively violates the rights of people who are attracted to the same sex. That’s not true. The three P’s will help us see why.

People sometimes obsess over the potential threat posed by terrorist attacks that could include chemical weapons, electromagnetic pulses or dirty bombs. Yet they tend to discount the less exciting but very real threats.

Perhaps you remember the rich history of Chicago? Obama reminds me of a fellow named Capone who sent out his version of Holder, Napolitano, Panetta, and LaHood to tell people; say nice business you got here, be a shame anything happens to it.

"Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Soviet Communist Party collapse? An important reason was that their ideals and convictions wavered," China's new leader, Xi Jinping, told a closed meeting of party elite in Guangdong province.

Thu, Feb 28, 2013

Two points are vital to understanding the sanctions being imposed on Iran: They are unlikely to succeed — if success is defined as stopping the regime’s rulers from developing nuclear weapons — yet they are an essential component of any serious and strategic policy mix. Let us count the ways.

The head of a conservative student organization at DePaul University has been sanctioned by the university and could be expelled after he released the names of vandals who destroyed a pro-life flag display.

"First you win the argument -- then you win the vote," is the now
well-known quote from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. President Ronald
Reagan was the last Republican president who understood and used that
strategy.

Barack Obama is said to believe that he can win the political fight over the sequester. That's certainly the conventional wisdom.And there is some evidence to support it. When you ask voters who will be to blame if the sequester occurs, Obama or "congressional Republicans," they're much more likely to say they'll blame the latter.

Weeks before the Oscars, Sony Pictures, the studio behind "Zero Dark Thirty," put out this statement: "We are outraged that any responsible member of the Academy would use their voting status in (the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences) as a platform to advance their own political agenda. The film should be judged free of partisanship. To punish an artist's right of expression is abhorrent. This community, more than any other, should know how reprehensible that is."

While it’s temping to blame the entire financial mess on the president, I subscribe to the Occam’s Razor theory. It says that the most logical explanation, more often than not, is the right one.
Sooooo…that’s why I DO blame the president.

Our campaigner in chief is running around the country pushing for higher taxes and no spending cuts and crying, "The federal sky will fall!" if Congress doesn't stop the puny 10 percent sequester from happening.

When Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., met with the San Francisco Chronicle's editorial board last week, she said reasonable people could pass a bill to apply $85 billion in sequester cuts more surgically. Too bad she's a member of Congress.

The Wall Street Journal of Feb. 27 tells the story in its own headlines. On page C1, the story was, "JPMorgan Pulls Belt Tight," while on C3 the headline read, "Wall Street's Bonus Pool Hits $20 Billion." If that doesn't describe this crazy false recovery we are allegedly undergoing, nothing does.

I have long contended that public policy issues are as complicated as they appear because the giants of Capitol Hill like it that way, particularly the giants of the left. Bills can be written more simply. Decisions can be phrased with a certain lucidity. Yet, if they were, the electorate would mull them over and, after a cup of coffee, make a decision on them. As things stand today, with talk of budget imbalance and of esoteric matters such as "sequestration," voters scratch their heads, blink their eyes and walk away. Who gives a hoot? It is time for my morning nap, perhaps, two naps.

You just learned that the Internet colossus that is Yahoo has decided to reel in all those workers who had previously been allowed to work at home in their jam-jams. According to a ukase from the company's new leader, Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's open-door policy has been shut.

These same governors who disagreed so emphatically with Obamacare, when presented with the promise of “free money” from the federal government to grow the number of patients on Medicaid, have little problem with this.

One person, one vote elections in a country whose population is predominantly under-educated fundamentalist Muslims means the Brotherhood or even stricter Islamist groups will control the government every time.

Pascal said, “People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.” So-called marriage “equality” is attractive. Who could be against equality?

Republican legislators are slowly, slowly uncurling from their fetal positions after the re-election of Barack Obama. The shock is wearing off even though not one strong voice has yet emerged from Washington, D.C. to lead the millions of Americans who are also in shock.

Part of the fear-mongering campaign is to insult people that think independently of the hype and conventional wisdom. To that end, we hear about the devastation of global warming based largely on economic loss. Of course man is moving into areas where people never lived before and the replacement cost for structures is a lot higher.

Wed, Feb 27, 2013

Having given up on trying to persuade Americans that taking guns away from law-abiding citizens will reduce the murder rate, Democrats have turned to their usual prohibitionary argument: "Why does anyone need (an assault weapon, a 30-round magazine, a semiautomatic, etc., etc.)?"

The Obamas think they’re celebrities instead of public servants. They appear on late night talk shows, shaking their booty and crooning slow jams with Jimmy Fallon, luxuriating in fundraisers with Hollywood’s elite, golfing with Tiger and of course presenting Oscars.

Secretary of State John Kerry was barely off the plane in Germany before he embarrassed himself—and all of us—with what is perhaps the worst defense of religious freedom ever offered. Kerry, the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for president in 2004, said the United States protects religious freedom because: “In America , you have a right to be stupid.”

For years, I’ve stood at the intersection of parenting and politics, trying to point out the myriad ways in which we are letting our culture change our children, only to anticipate with certain alarm the impact those changes will have on the character and spirit of our families and the communities we share.

An Advanced Placement World Geography teacher at a Texas high school who encouraged students to dress in Islamic clothing also instructed them to refer to the 9-11 hijackers not as terrorists – but as “freedom fighters,” according to students who were in the class.

A recent poll by the Pew organization showed that while those of us in Our Nation's Capital and the 2,375 people who watch cable chat shows are consumed by the looming sequester, the other 75% of Americans are just shrugging, sighing, and smiling knowingly that the world will go on after Friday.

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama proposed raising the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9 an hour. That would be almost a 25 percent increase. Let's look at the president's proposal, but before doing so, let's ask some other economic questions.

I can only hope that the scourge of racism is finally purged from
Stewartstown and Pinkham's Grant. These are two of 10 New Hampshire towns
covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which requires local
officials to get permission on any changes to their
election laws.

“How stupid if we got hit because we weren’t looking?” former astronaut Ed Lu, who runs a non-profit that cheers for asteroid collisions, told Wired Magazine. “That seems crazy to me.” Yeah, it will be much better when the government spends lots of money on asteroid-watching, knows the big one will hit and does nothing.

Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) was one of those tea party stars
whom voters believed had the courage of his convictions when he promised, as
recently as last summer, to block The Affordable Care Act in his state.

When George W. Bush was stumping as a "compassionate conservative" in the closing days of the 2000 presidential campaign, he went to Florida and repeated a campaign promise to double the funding for the National Institutes of Health.

President Obama is one of the great political knife-fighters in modern history. He is a failed president -- his economy is bleak, his foreign policy bleaker, his vision for American even bleaker still. But he wins.

The court previously has said that police may use drug-sniffing
dogs at will during routine traffic stops and may search cars without a
warrant, based on their own determination of probable cause. Now that it
has said a dog's alert by itself suffices for probable cause, a cop with a
dog has the practical power to search the car of anyone who strikes him as
suspicious.

The honorifics are Stalinist in style. Those analysts who hoped that a younger, western educated Kim would be more modern and progressive have proven to be far too optimistic. Kim Jung Un's regime is more severe than that of Kim Chong-il.

Before Michelle Obama announced the Best Picture to a large group of Democrats at the Oscars Sunday, Daniel Day Lewis’s triumph as Best Actor for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln was as close as the gathered crowd came to cheering anything that remotely resembled a Republican.

The financial world is upset because an austerity plan was rejected but that's not so bad considering what one assumes is austerity. In Europe, it has largely been tax hikes instead of slower spending and a dramatic decrease in promises to workers.

Most parents would agree that protecting your children from harm and doing everything possible to set them on a path of success and happiness are fundamental parental responsibilities. From the moment our children are born, their welfare becomes an almost singular obsession.

Recently, in the offices of the Mayor of the city of Nablus, Palestine, the missing pieces that would permit a just and lasting peace in the Middle East to flourish may have been presented. If harmony can be restored (as it can) within the social fabric that underlies the political fabric, peace finally becomes a possibility.

Tue, Feb 26, 2013

When Ben Affleck's "Argo" -- a film based on the true-life,
CIA-assisted Canadian operation to rescue American diplomats during the
Iranian hostage crisis in 1979 -- won the Oscar for Best Picture, all I
could think about was how badly Iran blew a prime opportunity to keep quiet
for once.

Monday, February 25th, marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, allowing the US government the authority to assess and impose an income tax on the citizens, by-passing the states in the process. Many on the political Left can barely conceal their glee and they are busy needling Conservatives, talking about the suitability of a “party” celebrating the centenary of the Sixteenth Amendment.

John Stuart Mill's classic essay "On Liberty" gives reasons why some people should not be taking over other people's decisions about their own lives. But Professor Cass Sunstein of Harvard has given reasons to the contrary. He cites research showing "that people make a lot of mistakes, and that those mistakes can prove extremely damaging."

President Obama told a meeting of the National Governors Association: "At some point, we've got to do some governing. And certainly, what we can't do is keep careening from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis." Really?

The question that’s most salient here isn’t the monies that are at stake now, but the monies that have been wasted before- and will be wasted again if we don’t demand cuts now. Monies that won't go to teachers and firefighters and cops and soldiers. Money that will reward those who've created the monster.

Isn't it grand that we have such a cool couple in the White House? Hollywood would never have deigned to invite any other First Lady to present the award for best picture at its annual self-worshipping soporific. Mrs. Obama knew just how to flatter the nearly inexhaustible vanity of people who sell tickets to shows.

Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) was one of those tea party stars
whom voters believed had the courage of his convictions when he promised, as
recently as last summer, to block The Affordable Care Act in his state. But
last week, writes the Orlando Sentinel, "Scott made an abrupt about-face,
embracing a three-year expansion of Medicaid coverage for about 1 million
low-income Floridians that will be paid for by the health care law."

Environmentalists are the people who coerced nations worldwide into banning DDT. It is generally estimated this ban has led to the deaths of about 50 million human beings, overwhelmingly African children, from malaria.

They have forgotten why this country was originally founded; to escape a land of persecution for your faith, unfair taxation without representation, and a government that chose only a select few to thrive. Sound familiar?

You've got to admit that it's awfully precious that there was a huge controversy about "Zero Dark Thirty" because Kathryn Bigelow's film suggested that enhanced interrogation techniques helped intelligence officials find Osama bin Laden but no controversy about the final mission in the movie -- to kill, but not capture, the al-Qaida leader.

President Obama ended his State of the Union speech on a warm and fuzzy note by calling for pre-K programs for almost all children. The best thing he could do for pre-kindergarten children is to make sure he doesn't hang trillions of dollars of debt around their necks, but that isn't the route he is taking.

I have long contended that public policy issues are as complicated as they appear because the giants of Capitol Hill like it that way, particularly the giants of the left. Bills can be written more simply. Decisions can be phrased with a certain lucidity. Yet, if they were, the electorate would mull them over and, after a cup of coffee, make a decision on them. As things stand today, with talk of budget imbalance and of esoteric matters such as "sequestration," voters scratch their heads, blink their eyes and walk away. Who gives a hoot? It is time for my morning nap, perhaps, two naps.

You knew it had to happen sometime. A husband discovers that he and his wife have the same sperm donor father. (Both of them raised by lesbian parents.) That means he married his half-sister, who is now the mother of their three children. What should they do?

Hardly had the shooting stopped at Sandy Hook Elementary School before the national commentary machine cranked up. Everyone and his dog had something to say: Most of it, as events would show, centered on the compelling need, or lack of it, for gun control.

Hardly had the shooting stopped at Sandy Hook Elementary School before the national commentary machine cranked up. Everyone and his dog had something to say: Most of it, as events would show, centered on the compelling need, or lack of it, for gun control.

We should not accept the statist premise that most government spending helps people. Government spending is not just wasteful or inefficient, but all too often serves to crush the private economy and individual freedom.

Next week's Sequestration is being sold as the worst crisis to face America since Russian ships raced toward Cuba, loaded with nuclear arms. According to the White House, a plague will be unleashed on America.

I have to read the same nonsense day after day about “deep spending cuts” even though I keep explaining to journalists that a sequester merely means that spending climbs by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years rather than $2.5 trillion.

If I were in your situation, I would not move in with the in-laws. You’ve got an absurd amount of money wrapped up in those cars. I’d sell the stupid things, start living on a budget and paying down debt, and keep my dignity.

Dr. Ben Carson, Presidential Medal of Freedom winner and legendary neurosurgeon, is now in the spotlight for his keynote address to the National Prayer Breakfast on February 7. It’s not brain surgery to figure out why.

Seeing the President and First Lady at nationally and globally-televised sporting events and Hollywood ceremonies makes it all that much easier for the average American to think that there is virtually no area of his life that excludes, or should exclude, government intervention.

In an early strategic preparation for the struggle to avoid the fiscal cliff, the president and several Democratic luminaries decided to redefine as essential several entitlement programs. In an old fashioned way of manipulating the public, they began to redefine commonly held beliefs. In the interest of time, we will share only one example.

Freshman Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is just the latest in a long series of public figures to be reviled for "McCarthyism" following his recent questioning of Chuck Hagel, President Obama's nominee for secretary of defense. The response? Conservatives have rushed to defend their own against the charge. To understate the case, that's not enough. It's time to debunk McCarthyism itself.

As predicted, the Democrats' refusal to cut any spending other than the military only delayed the inevitable. Now, as is already taking place in Greece, France and Spain, deep cuts must take place or the government will shut down. The fiscal cliff agreement and the Budget Control Act of 2011 called for sequestration on March 1st if an agreement on how to pay down the deficit was not reached. The sequestration mandates $1.2 trillion in spending cuts across the board throughout most of the federal government over the next decade. The only way to prevent sequestration is if the Democrats and Republicans come up with a compromise this week, which could involve tax increases, agreed-upon cuts, or both.

For years, most Americans' vision of history has been shaped by the New Deal historians. Writing soon after Franklin Roosevelt's death, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and others celebrated his accomplishments and denigrated his opponents.

This past Friday my organization, CURE, sponsored a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, to bring attention to the importance of rigorously defending the right of all Americans, guaranteed under the 2nd Amendment of our Constitution, to own a gun.

For listeners of my radio show, you’ll know that most Fridays we do a segment called "Ezra Klein is an Idiot." We don’t just call out the fallacies of Klein during the segment, however. We include liberals like Al Sharpton and John Boehner too, who both recently bemoaned the effects of sequester on our economy.

El Chapo haunts the streets of Chicago. His ghost hordes cash in Los Angeles stash houses. His shadow darkens underground tunnels between Mexico and the U.S. His spirit drives his clan to bloodshed. The world’s most-wanted kingpin may be dead. But the Sinaloa cartel will thrive until America legalizes drugs.

During black history month, we rightly celebrate men like black abolitionist Frederick Douglas and Martin Luther King, Jr. At pivotal points in America's history, these men took a stand for equal rights for black Americans.

Ronald Reagan spent the better part of a lifetime baffling the Left and often defeating them in the court of public opinion. Other Republicans have been battling the last twenty years to defund the left, particularly unions who get automatic payments through Dropbox without members having any say, or how plaintiff attorneys use their vast influence to buy Democratic officials who turn around and pass laws that line their pockets with more lawsuits.

The end of volunteerism with the draft explains why the average age of those who served in World War 2 is 26 - it is the middle of the range from which the pool of those conscripted were drawn into service in the years from 5 December 1942 through the end of the war in 1945.

Like most things in his life, Obama wants to be able to make up the rules as he goes along. And now that he’s done campaigning, he can go back to being the bumbling, arrogant, Barney Fife president that he was before GOP Speaker John Boehner gave Obama the winning lotto ticket to tax the heck out of us in November.

Like a breathless 13 year old girl at a One Direction concert, President Obama raced around the nation over the last week attempting to frighten Americans into opposing the modest cuts to the federal budget due through the sequester process on March 1. Never mind that the sequester was President Obama's idea.

In its wisdom -- and yes, I am being ironic -- the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco issued a ruling Tuesday that revives a California inmate lawsuit to force the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to hire a paid, full-time Wiccan chaplain.

Today the economy shows an 8% unemployment rate, which is higher than at any time during the Bush years, the President has dismissed Republican calls for compromise on budgetary issues, Second Amendment questions, and immigration policy, and it remains to be seen whether Obama will seek a third term through executive order, but no matter!

Public policy is a lot like math: No matter what the problem, the
wrong answers are far more numerous than the right ones. This is
particularly true on the subject of mass shootings and other firearms
violence, which have stimulated a new fervor for barking up the wrong
tree.

The Hurt Locker suggests that U.S. military servicemen conducting operations against terrorists are psychologically-impaired, irresponsible rogue elements who are dangers to themselves and others. Zero Dark Thirty portrays American spies and secret military operatives as devoted avengers of a horrific act of terror against the United States.

That means the message in the Russian and Chinese joint statements is targeted at North Korea. The apparent implication is that North Korea can expect no diplomatic or political assistance from them to soften UN sanctions. If that implication is accurate, as it seems to be, North Korea is being cut off from it historic and primary benefactors.

People are stunned when I ask them: “Did you know that companies that don’t cover the abortion pills can face a fine of $100 per day per employee?” People think I’m making this stuff up. It’s too outlandish to believe.

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